


The Wrong Story

by pauraque



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-03
Updated: 2004-04-03
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pauraque/pseuds/pauraque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I must not tell lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wrong Story

**Author's Note:**

> An icon ficlet for Riki. The prompt was a picture of a pickled dragon in a jar. The real story behind it can be found [here](http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html?from=top5).

Soft white birds' wings in graduated sizes lie in rows along this shelf, each tagged with a yellowing typewritten card. Harry glances up. The shelves stack all the way to the ceiling, black wings and brown wings with little labels. He continues carefully down the narrow aisle, acutely aware of the sound his shoes make against the hardwood floor. He knows there's no one here, but he thinks fleetingly of his old invisibility cloak— tattered by the end of it all, and destroyed along with the other things.

This next row here is the one Harry is looking for. It's nearly too narrow to squeeze through, like it's not meant to be a row at all. His hand brushes against a shelf of broken, unlabelled monkey skulls, and comes away coated with white dust. Shelf five, ten, fifteen—

The row dead-ends into a peeling plaster wall. Harry crouches down slowly, awkwardly, placing his hand on the wall for balance. The last section, just at the bottom, has two shelves, like someone added one more as an afterthought. Shelf fifteen-and-a-half, Harry thinks with a crooked smile. He gets right down on the floor, breathing the humid dirt and formaldehyde, and reaches in.

His hand knocks into something glass, and his breath catches. He wriggles arthritic fingers against it, rolling it towards him until he can grab hold and pull it out into the light.

The dragon is suspended in a jar of slightly yellowish brine. Its eyes are shut, its swan-neck craned down as if in prayer. Its arms and legs are bent in a fetal crouch; the veined wings are torn almost to stumps.

And Harry crouches there on the floor, breathing the stale citrus smell of the air. This has to be destroyed. Like his father's cloak, like the pillar that led to the train station platform.

Harry has destroyed so many things.

With one gnarled finger, he traces the dragon's mouth through the glass, imagining he can feel the rows of tiny perfect teeth. There is a scar across the back of his hand that now looks like nothing more than red, wrinkled lines.

 _I must not tell lies._

Harry's heart is beating hard, and his knees ache. He holds his breath.

He replaces the glass jar on shelf fifteen-and-a-half, and pushes it all the way to the back.


End file.
